“Luke and Tony are a professional couple living in Sydney. After registering their civil partnership, they decided to start a family. With money no object, they purchased an online ‘egg catalogue’ listing the origins, age and mental and physical characteristics of potential ‘donors’, and decided they would like a baby with ‘Swedish’ features: ‘blonde, blue-eyed, strong and sporty’. The couple signed up with a surrogacy agency that recommended an Indian surrogate to carry the baby, but three months down the line, having spent around A$3,000 ($2,265), they shelved the idea and bought a puppy.
Then came Tony’s 40th birthday and the desire for a family resurfaced. The couple got in touch with a new agency and soon committed to using the services of an egg donor in New Zealand/Aotearoa and a surrogate in Thailand. The eggs arrived, were fertilized by both men and the resulting embryos swiftly frozen and flown to a small town south of Bangkok. Here, at a designated clinic, the embryos were thawed and implanted into the uterus of the surrogate. Two weeks before she was due to give birth, they flew to Thailand and, in 2013, Grace was born. She has since gained a brother using the same egg donor but born from an Indian woman in Nepal.”
